School Says 14-Year-Old Girl Was Mature Enough to Consent to Sex With Teacher

Is a 14-year-old girl ever mature enough to consent to sex with an adult? Most of us would say hell no, but a Los Angeles school district is arguing that she can be. The Los Angeles Unified School District is being sued by a 14-year-old girl who had a six-month-long sexual "relationship" with a teacher. Despite the fact that the girl lied to her parents and snuck out of the house to meet her middle school teacher, Elkis Hermida, at motels -- she and her family are suing the school district for emotional distress.

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Legally, this girl can't consent to sex with an adult. Period. The man should be behind bars, and that is where he is, convicted of lewd acts against a child and sentenced to three years in prison.

Whether or not she lied to her parents, snuck out of the house, and willingly went to meet him is beside the point -- she is too young to know what she's getting herself into. She's too young to protect herself. He was her teacher, for god's sake.

BUT. Should the school district pay for this? That's where I say no. The school district had no idea (presumably) that the teacher it hired would do this. If the man had no criminal record, how could it know?

Nor could the school have done anything to safeguard the teen. It's one thing if it happens in a classroom, and one could argue that the classrooms should have security cameras or that male teachers shouldn't be left alone with teen girls -- but if it happened at a motel that the girl willingly went to, how could the school have possibly stopped it?

LA Unified's lawyer introduced the girl's sexual history and her actions during the relationship with the teacher and argued that she bore some of the brunt of the responsibility of what happened. He argued:

She wants to be paid for doing something that she knew was wrong, that she acknowledged was wrong, that she knew was from the beginning. She doesn't want therapy, she wants money.

I disagree that the teen is responsible for what happened. When you're the adult, and someone else is the child, you bear the responsibility for being the brains for both.

But at least according to what has been reported so far, the school really couldn't have done anything about what happened and it shouldn't have to pay.